Jim Bugslag made this interesting addition to this problem:
>I recently came across a village in the diocese of Chartres which
>perhaps offers a similar sort of place name. The medieval Latin name
>was Canisgaudium, which in modern French has become Sainte-Joye. This
>perhaps suggests that not all "Sainte-" place-names necessary
>[=?necessarily] have to be named after a saint. But perhaps we have an
>etymologist on the list?
Jim's comment seems to me to have application to a broader audience of folks
who might be confronted with similar problems of trying to sort out the
origins of French place names, and is thus worth commenting to the list as a
whole.
Being even more (hard to believe) etymologically than hagiographically
challenged, but with some limited--and thoroughly bumbling--experience in
trying to navigate the thicket of French place names, let me nonetheless say
that, in this instance, I don't see how we can get directly--
etymologically--from _Canisgaudium_ to "Ste-Joye".
But, who knows?
"Manufactured" saints are certainly not unknown (e.g. "Saint Longinus" or
"Saint Cheron" of Chartres).
In the case of Eure-et-Loir place names--and presumably others in other
areas--I know that there are a number of instances of places quite literally
"changing" (i.e., transforming in a non-etymological fashion) their names over
time--even in the 11-13th centuries--as they changed hands or whatever. Such a
thing was not at all uncommon, apparently.
The process continued into quite modern times, as the _Bureau de la
Poste_ demanded that ambiguities be "regularized", which is what led me
to think that Dom Anselm's "Ste-Fripette-les-Bois" *might* not be the
only "Ste-F": "les Bois" sounds to me like it may have been bureaucratically
added quite recently (comparatively) to distinguish this village from others
sharing the same saint's name.
It was for this reason that I mentioned the very useful "Noms anciennes" part
of Lucien Merlet's _Dictionnaire topographique d'Eure-et-Loir_ (and other
similar works in the same series for other Departements) for trying to sort
out such permutations. And, under the format established by
Merlet (I think), each entry in the _Dictionnaire_ includes, after its listing
under its modern (1861 or whenever) name, the various Latin forms to be found
in the surviving documents.
And, specifically for the Eure-et-Loir, there is the mostly unpublished work
of Pere Guy Villette (a late local historian and retired professor from the
Ecole Catholique) on the "Noms de lieux" of that departement (available in
memeographed copies at the Bibliotheques Municipal and Diocesean and the
Archives Departementales in Chartres).
Pere Villette's careful and scholarly work demonstrates that sorting out the
origins and historical transformations of place names requires a combination
of knowledge of not only the surviving documents but also of the *topography*
of the micro-region of the place under consideration.
As a general rule of thumb, I would suggest that if one can find the work of a
comparable local scholar in the region one is interested in, his (or her) work
should be taken with all the seriousness which it may merit.
(Needless to say, the work of both the elder Merlet and Pere Villette-- good
as they are--are not without some faults and errors and should be "controlled"
by one's own researches.)
All of which is to say that I do not dismiss Jim's point out of hand,
only that each case needs to be studied on its own, in sometimes
excruciatingly painful detail.
Best to all from here,
Christopher
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